Strange Meeting
by Caladria101
Summary: Sara O'Neill runs into a familiar face
1. Chapter 1

_This is a revamped version of chapter one, basically cos I looked at it and thought 'I can do better'. Whether I was right I'll leave up to you._

_**Post – Solitudes:**_

A small hand crept into hers. She smiled reassuringly at the worried face in the passenger seat and gave the hand a squeeze.

"Don't worry, honey, you'll be fine."

The worried face continued to be so.

Giving the hand another squeeze, she undid her seatbelt and opened the door.

And gasped silently.

Not ten yards from her was a face that for so long was so familiar she knew it better than her own, talking to a young teenager in a teasing manner.

"Now Cass, what are the school rules?"

The teenager rolled her eyes melodramatically. "Jack!" she whined. Looking for reprieve and finding none, she capitulated.

"Fine! Don't do anything you would do, and if you do, don't get caught. Can I go now? Or are you gonna embarrass me even more. If that's possible."

"I'll think of a way," he replied cheerily to the receding back.

He turned round with a cocky grin that froze on his face when he saw his audience.

"Sara."

One word, but with it he managed to lock away the openness that his face had shown with the girl, the openness that his face had _always _shown with children. Jack O'Neill had always been happier with the innocence of children, as if it helped him wipe out some of the blackness of his soul that Sara had only been permitted to glimpse in his darkest times.

"Jack," she replied, somewhat lamely.

His gaze fell downwards, and a slightly puzzled look appeared. She suddenly remembered her companion, and smiled downwards.

"This is Dorothy. I'm fostering," she said, by way of explanation.

The change in his face as he took in the 7 year old was nothing short of a complete metamorphosis.

"Hey Dorothy. Cool name. Like the Wizard of Oz, right?"

Sara had to smile at the reference to her ex-husband's favourite film. He and Charlie would sit watching it; when Charlie was an infant his eyes would light up as soon as it turned to colour, then when he was older the two would sit there and play 'Annoy Mom' by quoting bits of the film at her, then laughing together as she got more irritated.

The girl nodded shyly at Jack's enthusiasm, hiding behind Sara's legs, and sticking her head out to gaze at the man speaking to her. Sara smiled inwardly. Give the two another three minutes together and Dorothy would be smitten. She'd seen it so many times before.

Glancing at her watch, Sara looked again at Jack. "I just need to take her in to school, but I think you owe me an explanation."

The blank look on her ex-husband's face caused her to prompt, "The hospital, bout six months ago?"

Recognition flooding through his face made her wonder what he was doing these days, to cause such an event to pass from memory so easily, and she wasn't sure if she was happy or not that his response was a slight nod.

Turning to the child again, he pouted. "Not fair. You get to have fun. I don't."

Dorothy grinned at him, the first time Sara had seen her do so, and even more amazingly stuck her tongue out at him briefly. Looking between the adults, she decided that she hadn't done anything wrong, and stepped out a little from Sara's side.

Sara smiled briefly at the man responsible, then led the small girl into the school, leaving him behind.

Fifteen minutes later, the two ex-spouses were sat with a cup of coffee each at the house they once shared. Barely a word had been spoken between them, but the silence wasn't altogether uncomfortable.

"So….who was the girl you were dropping off?" she dared to ask. Start off on a simple subject, work up to the big stuff.

"Cassie. Cassandra. She's the daughter of a colleague. I'm on increased babysitting 'til I'm cleared for duty."

Although Sara had noticed the slight hitch in his walk, she hadn't wanted to comment. Explanations were terse at best during their marriage, she didn't believe that they would be more forthcoming now.

He'd caught her curious look though. "Busted ribs and leg coupla months back. Should be good as new soon."

Again, she had to wonder what he was getting himself into these days, but she shrugged it off with an effort. She wasn't supposed to worry about him any more, she didn't have to pick up the phone fearfully every time he went on a tour of duty. Not knowing….that had been the worst part of it. Having big gaps in her knowledge of him, gaps that she knew she couldn't even _ask_ him to fill in, because that would mean that he would either have to betray his country or his family.

They lapsed into silence again, until he suddenly asked, "What made you go into fostering?" He was fiddling with the handle of the mug.

"I'm not sure. I mean, I know we talked about doing something like it, but it just felt like the time was right. Maybe my life was getting back on track and I needed the extra responsibility."

He smiled at her fondly. "You always were the responsible one."

She grinned at him. "Well you sure as hell weren't!" And for a moment, they grinned at each other, finding a comfort in the familiar banter, something that Sara had long learned was Jack O'Neill letting you in with as little pain to himself as possible. She regarded him thoughtfully. "Speaking of responsibility…"

He shifted his weight in the chair uncomfortably, then spoke. "You know I won't be able to tell you, well, anything, really." He tried to balance the mug, thankfully now empty, onto his finger, catching with ease before it reached anywhere near the ground.

"What can you tell me? I've never have, and I never will ask you to compromise what you can and can't do."

He glanced at her, and it became her turn to shift under his gaze. While she may not have outright asked for any explanation, the lack of one had certainly not had a beneficial effect on their marriage. Sara had lost count of the times when she had bitten her tongue rather than ask what had caused him to come home in the battered state that he did, and the resentment that had built up, sometimes directed at him, sometimes at the government that had put him in the position that it did, had not been healthy for their relationship. Not surprising, really, that the straw that broke the camel's back had been military in origin. Maybe anything else she would have accepted.

"It wasn't Charlie. I mean, it wasn't a clone of Charlie. Not really. And it sure as hell wasn't deliberate, any of it."

He paused for a moment, and ran his fingers through his already messy hair in a gesture of frustration, making Sara unexpectedly think of his mother, who had used to threaten her son with a wet comb to try and make his hair lie flat.

"If you think I would ever do that, then you never knew me."

She had to admit, he was right there. He may have hurt her a lot _unintentionally_, but she couldn't believe in her heart of hearts that he would do something as callous as that without realising the effects it would have. For one thing, she had seen the look of anguish flicker briefly over his face as he had glanced at that…_thing_, and known that he hurt just as much as she did.

"It was…an experiment…that ran loose and in the process of trying to look at it, I came into contact with it, and that….thing was created.

"It said some stuff," she interrupted, choosing to ignore the fact that he sounded like he'd made half of that up on the spot. "And I believed it. It sounded…It sounded like the kind of crap that you would think, if I ever knew what went on inside your head."

"C'mon Sara, you know I never was the brightest. I don't get the technical babble they threw at me, so don't ask me to explain it."

"That's more than I thought I'd get, to be honest," she told him quietly, letting her gratitude show through her eyes. Verbalisations would only embarrass him and make him run a mile.

"If we're being honest, that's more than you ever should have heard." _That_ she could believe, after years of being told 'training exercise injury'.

He didn't ask her to keep quiet. She'd been an Air Force wife for too long to talk about anything to do with his job. She didn't know whether he deliberately didn't ask, or whether it was omission borne of habit, but she was ridiculously touched, all the same. It was…good…that he still trusted her, after everything.

He placed his coffee cup on the table. "I should be going. I gotta check in soon."

She walked him to the door. He turned and suddenly they were holding each other. Not desperately, or passionately, but with an ease borne of familiarity. They knew how to hold each other, had done so for years. She even knew, she thought wryly, not to put pressure on healing ribs.

He slackened his hold to look at her.

"Good luck. I'm glad, you know, that you've got something going on with these kids. You'll be great at it."

She smiled at him. Genuine heartfelt compliments with no trace of teasing were rare from this man, so she'd treasure his words.

"I'm glad you've got something too, Jack. And I'm glad you've got someone as well."

A puzzled frown appeared on his face. "I haven't said anything about…."

"You look like you've got a purpose, Jack, and most of all you look like you've found contentment. What's her name?"

The question tugged at her heart a little, but only as a memory of what once was.

"There's three someone's, and not in the way you're saying."

"Team mates?" she hazarded. She'd met some of his Air Force friends, and never failed to be amazed at how close he seemed to be to them. In some ways a hell of a lot closer to them than to her.

"Yeah. We're more like the Simpsons than the Waltons, but they're cool."

He glanced at his watch, then back to her, uncertain beneath the calm exterior.

"Go. I'm used to waving you off and not knowing if I'll see you again, remember?" Her slightly wry smile didn't fully take the sting out of her words.

He winced slightly, but nodded as he stepped away from her.

As she watched him walk off, the knowledge that he wasn't in the dark place she'd left him in made her a little easier. And the memory of a small girl sticking her tongue out made her smile.

_Don't worry – still a die hard SJ shipper, but always thought that Sara deserved some explanation for what happened, and the Jack Sara relationship always had interesting possibilities. Will probably continue this, but sporadic updates are ahead._


	2. Chapter 2

_AN – thought I'd better add in that this is set first season (chapter one after "solitudes", this chapter sometime towards the end of season or between seasons. Use your imagination, mine's run out…). Also, special imaginary present to anyone who finds typos/grammatical errors or big honkin' plot holes. _

"Dorothy!"

Sara glanced around the busy mall, trying to catch a glimpse of curly dark hair. Unsuccessfully. In the months since she'd had Dorothy, the young girl had grown in confidence, volume and, unfortunately at this moment, had become increasingly bold on her own. Sara sighed, and started to walk, then nearly fell over her charge and her companion.

"…And then after we've found Sara, _then_ I'll tell ya bout loons."

Sara focused on the crouching adult. "Loons, Jack? There's about as many as fish in that pond of yours," she commented dryly.

"Jack said he'd show me his telescope and where all the consellations are and where all the planets are and he said I could go to Mars…"

"I _said_," Jack interrupted, the two adults sharing a look of remembrance, albeit awkwardly, over the girl's head for another child who'd dreamed of constellations and planets, "maybe one day when you're grown up you could go there, and I _said_, that you could look through my telescope _if_ it's OK with Sara."

He pierced the girl with a look as he clambered to his feet. "Stop getting me in trouble with the grown ups."

She giggled, and hugged him enthusiastically around the waist. "But it's _fun._"

Standing in front of he ex-husband's door, Sara had to wonder what madness had brought her here. True, they could hold a civil conversation, and a lot of the resentment that she'd felt towards the silent, brooding man of the last days of her marriage had dissipated over time and with her own grief, but still.

Somewhere deep inside was a part of her that wanted to scream at the man for being able to go on living, to look happy when _he had killed their son._ And to add insult to injury, he then completely blocked her, emotionally, not only denying himself, but also leaving her without the one person she always thought that she could rely on to be a solid presence at her side, even if his job had made it a metaphorical presence for a substantial part of their marriage.

Yes, she knew that even before Charlie he'd had terrible demons to contend with, but he'd always looked out for her even when he wouldn't allow her to look out for him.

It was this resentful, bitter, hurting person that he had walked away from when he had accepted that damn suicide mission, and she could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew exactly what it was when he accepted.

So she'd run. If he could walk out on anything they might be able to salvage, then she didn't want to be here when the SF's came to tell her that he'd got what he wanted. She couldn't mar the house with every single member of her little family.

She'd heard from military friends that he'd returned, and by the time she returned to the house, he'd packed up and gone. She wasn't sure if she was devastated or relieved.

The note she'd left for him on the kitchen table was still lying there, as if removing it was just too much effort for the world weary soldier.

So she'd tidied it up, rearranged the house to try and make it look less like half of the personal items had been removed, and tried to carry on existing. The house was unbearably huge for one person, but parting with it, parting with the remnants of Charlie, was more than she could take. So her father had moved in, and filled in some of the empty gaps that remained.

Then the fostering idea, one that had lain dormant for years after they'd decided that they couldn't ask another child, not their own, to live with the uncertainty of Jack's job, had re-emerged.

Then Dorothy had arrived, and strangely, almost immediately after, Jack had made a return, welcome or not she still wasn't sure, and flitted through her life again.

She smiled at the child besides her, who pointed up to the roof and laughed.

Sara followed her gaze. "Oh, you've got to be kidding," she muttered.

"Come on up, ladder's round the side," yelled down the object of her wrath, oblivious.

"Is it safe?"

He flashed her one of the cheeky grins that over fifteen years ago had led to her downfall. _Where had all that time gone?_

She returned his look with a glare, then helped Dorothy to climb the ladder.

The excited child was bouncing all over the roof when Sara finally made it up. She pinned her ex-husband with a look. "You _know_ I can't stand heights."

He started at the floor for a second, then offered, "Oops?"

She chose to ignore him, instead turning to the girl, trying to help her focus the lens at a star. She could feel him hovering behind them, unsure of whether to offer a hand or not, worried about his telescope in the hands of mere amateurs.

Finally, she stepped away and gestured him to take over.

He leapt in, all boyish enthusiasm as he talked about one of his favourite subjects to a captive audience. And Dorothy seemed to be just as enthralled.

Belatedly, he remembered his second guest. "If you wanna go inside and grab a drink…not that I'm trying to get rid of you," he added hastily, "but I know you're not really interested in this kinda stuff."

"That'd be great. Thanks. I assume your door's unlocked?"

She rolled his eyes at his nod – she'd been brought up to be a lot more safety-conscious than he had – and climbed down the stairs, relieved to be stood on solid ground once more.

By the time Jack climbed down the stairs, sleeping child held awkwardly in one arm, Sara had turned on his TV and was looking at a photograph on his mantle, a steaming mug on the coffee table.

He entered his sitting room, alone, with his own steaming mug.

"I left her in the spare room for the minute," he said in response to her querying look.

She nodded, then asked, "This your team?"

He nodded as she sat next to him, photograph in hand.

"The guy on the left," he said, pointing to a lanky man with glasses, "Is Daniel."

"He doesn't look military."

"He's not. He's a doctor. Archaeology, not a doctor doctor. He's a geek. More allergies than a classroom full of kids and just as enthusiastic and idealistic.

"The guy next to him is Teal'c. He's quiet, gets the job done. He's a solid guy, totally dependable. Nobody better to watch your six.

"Now, him, next to Teal'c, I've got no idea who he is," he joked.

Rolling her eyes at his antics, Sara had to wonder if Jack realised just how much he'd given away in so few sentences.

"Who's the woman?"

"Captain Carter. Sam. Probably the smartest person I've ever know or will ever meet. She's got us out of some tough stuff. Anyway, she must be a great person, she laughs at my jokes!"

Sara smiled obligingly and basked in the glow of her ex-husband's face as he talked about his team. He was almost as fiercely proud of them, she realised, as he'd been of Charlie.

They talked a little longer, changing the subject to more trivial things, exchanging news on friends, until Sara let out a yawn.

"I think it's time we head off."

"Want me to get Dorothy?"

"Unless you want her to wake up in Oz, that would be great, thanks."

Between the two of them, they strapped the sleeping child into the seat of the car. An awkward moment arrived when they caught each other's eyes, remembering the many times they'd done this for their own child.

"So…" Jack drew out.

"This evening's been…lovely. Thank you."

The soft look in Jack's eyes was purely directed at the child. "Anytime."

She briefly hugged him, whispering, "Night, Jack", before getting into her car and driving off.


End file.
